Page 20 of What Is Dark Within Me

He paused and looked at her. There was little light trickling to them from the moon, but despite this, his eyes seemed to shine. Again, he acquiesced with no argument. “All right. But delay no more than is necessary.”

“Why do you always do that?” she asked, trying to hide that she was already panting. Aleja’s legs sunk to the knee in the snow. At least the dog looked happy. Garm flopped onto his back so he could open his mouth to the sky and catch snowflakes.

“Do what?”

“You seem to hate me, but every time I ask something of you, you agree right away,” she said.

“I wouldn’t do anything to defy your free will unless I had no other choice.”

She shivered. Any residual heat from the car had long since left her skin, and the outer shell of her jacket was crunchy with frost. “That’s bullshit. You killed three members of my family. I doubt they begged you to murder them.”

“That’s a discussion for another time. For now, focus on Laurent. Perhaps you should knock. Better I speak only when needed.” Nicolas whistled to Garm, who bounded to them, his black fur speckled with snow.

She didn’t have a chance to argue before both Nicolas and Garm camouflaged themselves in shadow, only visible by the reflectiveness of their eyes. Aleja realized how acutely she could feel the magic of their bond. She might be terrified, but Nicolas’s calm dampened her fear, like two weather systems swirling together.

That makes tornados too, said the voice in her head.

Aleja knocked and waited. A flurry of movement came from behind the door. Metal clacked against wood, and then something thudded like a pair of damp boots against the floorboards. When the door opened, a shotgun was pointed at her face.

She stared down its barrel as snowflakes fell into her open mouth, but Garm knocked against her, and then Nicolas stood alone, framed in the doorway.

No, not just Nicolas. The Knowing One.

His wings were back and now large enough to span the narrow trail leading to the cabin. For a moment, Aleja believed he might truly be the center of the forest—the being to which all the dark things that slithered out of their burrows in the night were loyal.

Thierry Laurent seemed to agree. The man stumbled back as the shotgun went off, tearing a chunk from the door frame. Neither Nicolas nor Garm flinched, but Aleja’s hands shot to her ears. With her new senses, the sound was relentless.

“Put that thing away before I make you regret it,” Nicolas said. Aleja wondered why she could hear his voice when everything else—the trees, the night birds, the ice creaking on the mountain—had disappeared beneath the gunshot.

“Yes. Yes—sir, uh, master. You’ve come to me at last, and I didn’t even light the black candle tonight.” Laurent didn’t appear in control of his voice or his body. The shotgun’s barrel pointed at the ceiling, then at something beyond Nicolas in the dark woods. Laurent barely reacted when Garm reached out with his hand-like paws and yanked the gun away.

“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” Nicolas went on, as Laurent continued to gape at him, his jaw slack. He seemed to notice Aleja for the first time, and his hands clenched around the air, though Garm had already tossed the shotgun into the snow.

“Of course. Come in. I don’t have a proper meal ready, but I can pour you some wine.”

“Coffee is fine,” Nicolas said, breezing past Laurent without acknowledging Aleja was next to him. Her fingers ached from the cold, but she was too nervous to shove her hands into her pockets.

The rapid beating of her heart filled her senses like a loud soundtrack that couldn’t be turned off.The cabin wasn’t much larger than what she’d seen through the scrying mirror. To her left was a fireplace paired with a dwindling pile of wood. The room smelled of alcohol, gun smoke, and a faint musk of human skin. Laurent shuffled through the small kitchen, knocking over empty beer cans as he searched for a tin of coffee.

Has Violet been here? she wondered as Garm shook himself off, splattering snow against the furniture.

Hot water spilled across Laurent’s hands as the kettle whistled and he yanked it off the stove. The man barely reacted, other than to give Nicolas an apologetic bow.“I’m sorry, master. This is the best I have to offer, I’m afraid—”

“Stop calling me that. If you’d like to make yourself useful, sit down and answer her questions.”

Laurent’s eyes made their way to Aleja, and he started, as if again remembering there was a third person in the room. The tip of his pale tongue jutted from between his teeth. “Have we met?”

Aleja hadn’t expected him to address her directly, but the warmth of the fire was bringing her back to herself. Even her pounding heart had quieted, now a comforting rhythm reminding her shehadn’tjust taken a shotgun blast to the face.

“I—” she began, meaning to say she was from the Gentle Hearts Agency, but Laurent interrupted.

“Wait. Your hair isn’t the right color, but that nose. Those eyebrows. You’re a Ruiz, aren’t you? Quelle chance!”

Laurent’s expression cleared as he poured four mugs of coffee, keeping most of the grainy liquid from spilling over the saucers. She didn’t think it was worth mentioning one of those mugs was apparently for the Doberman, who’d settled by the fire to lick snow from between his toes.

“Imagine,” Laurent said. “The Knowing One and a Ruiz in my home. If I had known, I would have prepared.”

“Enough,” Nicolas said, accepting the mug Laurent handed him and setting it aside. The room’s shadows moved around him like he was the center of some dark gravity. “You’ve agreed to answer her questions, and I have business with you myself before the night is over.”

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